The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) took over Phuket's Provincial Hall on Tues., Sept. 2, a follow-up action to the group's invasion of Phuket International Airport on Fri., Aug. 29. The PAD-led anti-government protests have seemed rather remote here in Phuket. A group of around 1,000 rallied at Provincial Hall during June, but otherwise the political standoff between PAD and the government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has only shown up locally on the television news.

Though the Phuket Gazette reported that local PAD leaders planned to end the occupation of Provincial Hall on Wed., Sept. 3. they were still there when I finally had a chance to drop by on the evening of Thurs., Sept 4. Khun Jang, the senior reporter at the office, told me that the busiest time at the protest site was at the end of the business day, when many people stopped by after work. That's exactly what Duk and I did.

The site of the protest was moderately busy, with the requisite line-up of motorbikes parked on the street and a long row of street food vendors serving from motosai saaleng, or motorbike-sidecar contraptions fitted with a table and awning overhead. The entrance to the grounds of Provincial Hall was watched by a handful of young men, all wearing tags identifying them as members of the protest group and one fingering a megapohone.

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The big breakthrough on this issue isn't visible inside. Instead, it can be seen in the smile on my face. Only a week short of six months to the day I started working with the newsmagazine, we finally got the production cycle worked out. We met our print deadline without overtime, having planned and executed the issue methodically. And that means that I didn't have to work insane hours, sacrificing my weekends.

Of course, events crashed in on us, and we had to scramble to follow a breaking news story about protesters closing Phuket International Airport. Khun Jang and Khun Matt spent most of the weekend before our printer deadline at the airport watching the protests and talking to airport officials and local leaders about the costs of the airport closure and the ongoing negotiations with protesters. We managed to get in a brief but newsy recap.

Also in this issue, we extended colorful summary boxes, which until now had only appeared on dining reviews, to almost every feature except news. Tha was one thing that I early on thought Phuket Post should do. Since the newsmagazine is printed on good paper in full-color, I think the overall look-and-feel is improved by smart use of color instead of relying on standard newspaper black-and-white.

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Somewhere North of Fremont it hit me. I was driving along Highway 680 to Auburn to visit my Mom and sister Cathee. It was a warm, clear morning on Jan. 16, 2008, and I had left Santa Cruz without feeling a twinge of emotion. I was headed away from the city I called home for more than 18 years, and a few days later I would leave from San Francisco International Airport on a flight to Thailand, where I hoped to live and work indefinitely. Forty minutes into the drive, I started to cry.

I managed to pull off the highway at the next exit to let all the feelings out. So many things had changed during the past year. My husband in all but legal documents was not my husband anymore. My home on Market Street in Santa Cruz was not my home any more. My cozy if mostly unrewarding business no longer operated. But the feeling wasn’t one of overwhelming sadness. Yes, I felt sad that I couldn’t say when I might see my friends and loved ones again. But the emotion had a lot of relief in it, as if I had changed for the better, as if I had taken off a leaden coat and could move freely wherever I wished. As with most tearful purges, the flood of emotion ebbed after 10 or 15 minutes. I composed myself to drive the rest of the stretch to my mother’s home in Auburn and a moment later returned to the highway feeling peaceful and alive.

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I had initially worked up another idea for the cover of this issue. But when Fraser Morton's piece on the Phuket Stunt Show came in, I thought it would make a dramatic cover. Thanks to photo contributor Gina Smith for a great image and senior designer Khun Boo for a good concept for the banner headline. I had to work the phone to arrange for a good property feature for the cover of the Propety Plus supplement when a planned story fell through. Junior designer Aorn came up with a good-looking cover design for Property Plus in an astonishingly short time.

The staff had typically worked late into the night to get to the printer on time, but I decided that it wasn't fair to penalize everyone for my lack of organization. (The tradition of working late on deadline day had been handed down to me, and it was something that I never cared for. Fed up with working late and frustrated that I had been unable to get help from management to fix production cycle problems, I sent everyone home at the typical close of business, at 6pm. We sent the issue to the printer the next day, late for the second time in a row

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As always, I had taken time to decide. I spent two sessions with my therapist going over the idea of leaving Santa Cruz to work on cruise ships. Stuart and I talked at length about the idea. And, as usual, I swung quickly into action when I made up my mind. I did the paperwork for the cruise line contract, got a passport and a certificate of good health from a local doctor, closed down my internet consulting business and said my goodbyes to family and friends.

Something changed in me on the very day I flew out of San Jose International Airport for Galveston, Tex., where I would join the Grand Princess. Of course, I felt sad to leave, and I felt a great deal of excitement at beginning an adventure. But I also felt a sense of peace, a sense that I didn’t have to keep up with life, to anticipate the many things that would be required of me as I encountered new situations. Instead I felt that I could let life unfold on its own. I noted in a journal entry I wrote while waiting for a connecting flight in Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport that I felt I had few things left to worry about.

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Since our street date was Aug. 8, 2008, which is a very lucky day in Chinese numerology, we created a whimsical cover story musing on eight lucky things about living in Phuket. Khun Boo executed a good-looking cover from my concept, using brushstroke font and a background stamped with the Chinese characters for "double happiness."

(The "double happiness" characters, I was delighted to see, are traditionally associated with the number eight. According to Wikipedia, Chinese people think the character "xi," which means happiness or good fortune, looks like the number 8. My delight came from having worked with the Santa Cruz, CA-based band Slow Gherkin on its debut album, Double Happiness.)

On the inside, the concept and the graphical presentation of the story weren't as thought-out as they could have been. I think the rest of the issue looked good, especially since I made a special effort to make the most of good photography whenever possible. An advertiser bought advertorial space in the Property Plus supplement, including the cover and center spread. We were a day late sending this issue to the printer.

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Download PDF of Phuket Post #81

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Download PDF of Phuket Post #80

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The first full issue cycle I worked on staff.

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